The pursuit of inevitable glory : representations of China in People’s Daily news articles

Abstract

This thesis is focused on the representation of China in Chinese news media. The aim of the thesis is to investigate how China wished to be viewed by foreign audiences and how the image of China is attached to the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation. National rejuvenation is a political endeavor which encompasses China’s quest to redeem itself from past humiliations and to achieve complete national unity.

The data for this thesis was gathered from People’s Daily Online which is a state-affiliated Chinese news media. The reason for choosing People’s Daily for the sourcing of data is because the state-controlled nature of the media allows the research to focus on the way that the state wishes for China to be viewed. The data is comprised of news articles, which were selected to include references to the discourses of national rejuvenation as well as the centenary of the Communist Party of China. The interest of this thesis was to answer questions of how are social actors represented in these news articles and what kind of ideology is behind this representation.

The methodological base for the thesis comes from the Discourse-Historical Approach which is a branch under the umbrella of Critical Discourse Analysis. This approach allows for the analysis of data to be approached multi-methodologically, and the focus of the approach is on historicality. The focus on historicality allows the deeper delving into the narrative of national rejuvenation, because this narrative is defined through historical discourse. The theoretical base for the thesis comes from a variety of different social theories that explain the role of national rejuvenation and national image in the Chinese context.

The representation of China in the data focuses on legitimizing the rule of the Communist Party of China. China, the Chinese people and the Party are positively qualified, and negative qualifications of Chinese social actors are not included in the data. The Party is discursively constructed for the articles to represent its role as the leader of the Chinese nation while Xi Jinping is discursively constructed as the leader of the Party through strategies that focus on creating an illusion of total acceptance of the Party’s and Xi’s authority.

The dream of national rejuvenation is used to legitimize the rule of the Party. The future glory of national rejuvenation is qualified to be of much greater importance than the problems of China’s past. The Party is argued to be a necessary part of this quest for rejuvenation.

The conclusion of the thesis is that China wishes to portray itself as peaceful but powerful. People’s Daily wishes to legitimize the rule of the Communist Party to foreign audiences and create an image of the Party as a benevolent social actor that benefits the Chinese nation and doesn’t wish to cause conflict in terms of international relations, although the data includes warnings for those who wish to involve themself in China’s territorial issues. The inevitability of national rejuvenation is exaggerated, which represents the confidence of China to achieve its goal of rejuvenation. The downside that the Party might face because of such confidence is that if political rhetorics focus so largely on being able to achieve rejuvenation, the legitimacy of the Party will suffer greatly if the goals are not achieved